53. Like last year, our Winter Trip to the Sooley
Cabin near Whitbourne started the weekend previous to the actual cabin trip
which was held in the middle of February. Rodger, Sooley, Maffer, Jen and I
hopped aboard my '94 GMC Jimmy and hit the highway. These photos are stills
grabbed from digitized VHS camcorder tapes from the trip.

52. We arrived to the cabin to find the latch on
the screen door broken and not opening, but a quick Sooley custom repair had the
door fixed in no time.

51. Today's one day trip was mainly to get the cabin ready for the
annual trip next week by bringing down wood for the wood stoves, checking ice on
the pond, making sure the Kubota generator was running right and dropping off
some supplies. This was also Project Foreman's very first winter trip as I had
just bought my bike the previous October.

50.

49. Back then the cabin was on generator only, powered by a Kubota
12kw genset.

48.

47. The old shed which is still used as a woodshed would be our
crappy weather refuge for BBQing next week!

46. We also gassed up and got the old Enticer 340 running, we
checked the pond and found 10" of ice in most places. Back then we rarely went
up to the top of the pond as only a couple of us had machines and no one wanted
to walk to the top of the pond.

45.

44. The following Friday we hit the highway, this weekend I took
dad's 1997 Yukon as a had 4 people aboard plus our Argo and my Foreman ATV in
tow on our double trailer. That would be quite a load on my small S-10 Jimmy.
Sooley, Spurrell, Brad Learning and I headed up to the cabin while more of the
crew would arrive later in the trip.

43.

42. Maffer and Ann Marie were already at the cabin as they got a
ride up a little earlier.

41.

40. Later that day Mark Earle showed up and he piloted the Argo
while I logged a few miles on Project Foreman down on the pond. Later we headed
into the back cut over to gather up stuff for this evening's bon fire. We had
cut a lot of wood earlier that fall so there was lots of tree tops and bows to
gather up for a fire.

39.

38.

37.

36.

35. Friday's bonfire was mostly uneventful, Maffer missed out as he
fell asleep after supper. He worked an overnight shift Thursday night and hadn't
slept at all yet today so he simply crashed for a power nap.

34.

33.

32. Saturday morning Sooley's father arrived at the cabin with a
portable welder in tow so we could install brand new gates we made up in town at
Farmer's shop in the Goulds. We used an angle grinder to cut off the old gates
and set about welding new mounts to the existing poles in the ground.

31. The welding job was terrible, classic bubble gum shit weld,
however the gates are still hanging there 20 years later!

30.

29.

28. By mid afternoon we had the job complete.

27. Saturday afternoon Quigg and Roger dropped up to the cabin, they
couldn't stay as Quigg had to work a shift at the club (Normies) but I arranged
for him to grab my Jimmy in town so he could come back up when he finished up
later that night.

26.

25.

24.

23.

22. At this time, water for the cabin was stored in outdoor barrels
on a wooden water tower which had been drained down before freeze-up. Back then
we had no other choice but to get water in buckets from the pond, this job was
definitely made easier by towing the buckets in the box trailer with my bike.

21.

20.

19. BBQ in da shed!

18.

17.

16.

15. The rest of the night was like most cabin trips at that time,
beer, cards and activities. LoL

14.

13. Like last year we did put off a very low budget fireworks show.
This year we doubled the budget and had 12 fireworks.

12.

11.

10. Cone head Sooley!

9.

8.

7.

6.

5. At 4am Quigg and Steve Janes made it to the cabin after a long
night at the club, we finally went to bed near 6am.

4. Sunday was the last day of our (soon to be annual) winter trip
and was spent cleaning up, which back then was quite a job!

3.

2.

1. It was getting dark by the time we had the cabin
cleaned, winterized again, and the vehicles loaded up for the drive home. Even
though these old Winter trips were short and pretty well void of ATV/Snowmobile
activities, they were still a heck of a lot of fun.